PDP has no enviable legacy to learn from, says APC

 

THE All Progressive Congress (APC) yesterday took a swipe at the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for what the former called orchestrated distractions by the latter.

It (APC) said there was nothing enviable in the legacy of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration for President Muhammadu Buhari to appropriate.

As far as the ruling party is concerned, the immediate past administration remained the most incompetent and clueless in the nation’s history.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the APC described the Dr. Jonathan-led administration as a failed one and its achievements dubious.

The APC accused the PDP of deliberately embarking on mudslinging and blackmail to derail the focused President Muhammadu Buhari, whose administration has surpassed in less than 90 days, what Dr. Jonathan failed PDP could not achieve in 16 years.

“The distractions being orchestrated by certain elements in the polity will not deter the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari from its avowed determination to rescue Nigeria from the clutches of those who are holding the country by the jugular,” the statement said.

It went on: “The people, including fringe elements, who have frenetically engaged in fault finding with the Buhari administration, are those who either have skeletons in their cupboards or those who are acting at their behest, for a fee.

“These paranoid and skittish people daily run to the media to disparage the Buhari administration. Grasping at their straws, they condemn and criticise everything from appointments to the war against corruption and the battle against insecurity, even though the party to which they belong had 16 years to make things right for Nigeria but chose to suck the country dry, enthrone insecurity and pauperise the citizenry.

“Their design is simple: Make enough incoherent noise in the media with the hope that the Administration will be distracted.

”Unfortunately for them, they have failed in their evil machination, because this President can neither be deterred nor be distracted. While their dogs continue to bark, the caravan of the Buhari administration proceeds on its steadfast journey.

“While a virile opposition is indispensable in any democracy that is worth its salt, no opposition can succeed by dwelling on the mundane, or by engaging in bare-faced lies. Only good research, strict adherence to the truth and a focus on real issues rather than frivolities can make the opposition relevant.”

It wondered why the Buhari administration should take the blame for the “blatant refusal of the last administration to adequately equip the military to confront the Boko Haram insurgency, when even an appointee of the administration told the whole world that he was the head of a military that lacked the relevant equipment and motivation to fight an insurgency.

“What achievement is there for anyone to appropriate from an Administration that will go down in history as the most rapacious, incompetent and clueless in the history of our nation?” it queried.

The APC noted that in less than three months, the Buhari administration has started off on a strong footing in many areas, including the fight against insurgency; the battle against corruption; the reorganisation of the oil sector that was the private piggy bank of the last administration; the bailout granted to cash-strapped states and the revival of the Nigerian dream.

It also listed the resetting of the Nigeria’s diplomatic relations with the rest of the global community and the overdue clean-up of the Niger Delta region, which was shockingly ignored by a President from that region as some of the landmarks of the three-month-old administration.

The statement said: “With its sure-footed efforts in all the listed areas already attracting national and international acclaim, does it not beggar belief that the same Buhari administration will be accused by the apologists of the failed regime of appropriating their dubious achievements?”